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Milne signals end of Labor Greens alliance

TIM PALMER: The federal Greens Leader Christine Milne has declared that her party's formal agreement with the Labor Government is effectively over.

But that bold statement means little in practice, with the Greens still guaranteeing to back confidence and supply votes for Julia Gillard's Government.

Christine Milne is seeking to differentiate the Greens from Labor, accusing the Government of putting the interests of big mining companies ahead of the Australian public.

But the Government appears unfazed, saying its priority will always be jobs and economic growth.

One Minister says The Greens have been "parasitic" and Christine Milne is simply playing politics.

From Canberra, Naomi Woodley reports.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Greens were the first to strike a formal agreement with Labor as it sought to form a minority government after the 2010 election.

But less than three years later, The Greens leader Christine Milne says it's all over.

CHRISTINE MILNE: By choosing the big miners, the Labor Government is no longer honouring our agreement to work together to promote transparent and accountable government, the public interest, or to address climate change.

Labor has effectively ended its agreement with The Greens. Well, so be it.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Greens leader says they'll still deliver confidence and supply for Labor in the final months of this Parliament, so the move is largely symbolic.

But she cited a string of recent decisions by the Government as the basis for her declaration.

CHRISTINE MILNE: The Tarkine decision, the attack on single parents, the unwillingness to act on coal seam gas or the mining tax, and fossil fuel subsidies - all those things send a very clear message that Labor's priorities lie with powerful mining interests, not with the people and The Greens.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I think Christine Milne has an opportunistic political agenda to push in the run-up to the election.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Government's Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese, holds an inner city seat which is regularly a target for The Greens.

He says Senator Milne failed to spell out which parts of the Labor-Greens alliance have been broken.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: The Greens political party also have been shown that they try to have a parasitic relationship with Labor, attempting to gain credit for initiatives which are Labor initiatives when they find it convenient.

The reasons she has given for walking away from the agreement with the Labor Government are ones that are outside of the agreement.

NAOMI WOODLEY: But Christine Milne says the Government's refusal to amend its Minerals Resource Rent Tax shows that large business interests are threatening Australia's democracy.

CHRISTINE MILNE: What is going on when a Prime Minister and a Treasurer get in a back room with three mining companies and stitch up a deal and take it to the Parliament and say that the elected representatives of that country can't amend that deal because it is a private deal in a back room with a Treasurer and a Prime Minister and three mining companies?

And even Treasury have now said they didn't know what was stitched up in that room.

If ever there was an answer to your last question, which is the extent to which the Parliament is owned by the mining industry - that's it.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Greens will move for yet another inquiry into the design of the tax.

The shadow assistant treasurer, Liberal Senator Mathias Cormann, has chaired two previous inquiries into the MRRT (Minerals Resource Rent Tax) but says the Coalition won't stand in the way of another one.

MATHIAS CORMANN: We think the mining tax is a bad tax. It's bad for investment, bad for the economy and as it turns out, bad for the budget too.

We do think it should be scrapped and any inquiry into the mining tax won't change our position in relation to this.

However, if The Greens want to give another platform to critics of the mining tax to critics of the mining tax to come out and explain why the mining tax is a bad tax which came out of a bad process, good luck to them.

We won't stand in their way.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan says the Government has nothing to fear from another inquiry, or The Greens' move to distance themselves.

WAYNE SWAN: We always put jobs and growth first. The Labor Party and The Greens are cut from a different cloth.

NAOMI WOODLEY: The head of the Australian Workers' Union, Paul Howes, was also singled out for criticism by Senator Milne for his role in lobbying against natural heritage listing for the Tarkine wilderness area in Tasmania.

He also didn't appear troubled by the attention.

PAUL HOWES: This is just a political ploy by Christine Milne because she's upset that she lost the campaign in northwest Tasmania.

Well, boo hoo.

NAOMI WOODLEY: Three of The Greens' nine Senators are facing re-election in September, as is their only lower house MP, Adam Bandt.

Christine Milne's efforts to strike some distance between The Greens and Labor might end her regular meetings with the Prime Minister, but it is more about trying to ensure The Greens win enough votes in their own right to retain the balance of power if the Coalition wins the next election.

In a speech to the AWU (Australian Workers' Union) conference in Queensland, the Treasurer Wayne Swan has acknowledged Labor's under pressure, but he issued a rallying cry to one of its biggest support bases.